About the Intel Z270 Chipset

Along with the Kaby lake launch, Intel released a series of 100 series chipset for various segments. The Intel Z270 platform is the enthusiast class, while the Z250, H270, Q250 and the Q270 chipset are for the lower price segments. The MSI Z270 Gaming M5 looks to be a promising motherboard, but we’ll take a look at Intel Z270’s offerings.

The PCIe lane distribution is the same as its previous counterparts- Z170 and the Z97. It works as a 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 or 2x PCIe 3.0 x8 mode. There are 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes in total, also support for up to six SATA 6Gb/s ports, 10x USB 3.0 ports, 14, USB 2.0 ports and even supporting DDR3L, provided if any manufacturers will bother to utilize that.

There are some new features, as you would notice there are four additional PCIe 3.0 lanes, native support up to 2400MHz DDR4 memory and Device Protection Technology with Boot Guard. For some strange reason, Intel didn’t mention anything about its Optane technology, since that was meant to be one of the key highlights of this chipset.

About the MSI Z270 Gaming M5

MSI Z270 Gaming M5 seems to be taking advantage of its native features as much as possible. It also provides two M.2 mounts (With RAID) which share lanes with some of the SATA 6Gbs as many mainstream motherboard users will be aware from their past experiences. One of its own selling points are two USB ports specifically labeled ‘VR Ready’ and ‘VR Boost’. In a nutshell, it provides clean signals to avoid any latency.

I am not a fan of labeling “gaming” on PC components. Due to various brands, it either means “Too expensive” and “Too cheap in quality and price”. We’ve seen cases when even the highest selling motherboard brand use low-cost solutions with ‘gamer’ tag. It limits one person’s opinion about anything with that word is a versatile product. That might be one person’s opinion, but we’ve seen success on both sides. Such as Kingston labeling HyperX towards gaming in full force and releasing headsets in a speed that nobody would bother to keep count, while Cooler Master chopped off “CM Storm” for Master series with a limited release with a time period.

Packaging and Contents

Front Packaging

Rear Packaging

MSI Z270 Gaming M5’s packaging is very straightforward and it shows the motherboard’s design on both sides of the packaging. It lists its specification and features on the rear. The listing of its slots, expansion opportunities and the I/O layout is very appreciated.

Inner Packaging

Inner Packaging

Contents

The motherboard is neatly packed in an anti-static bag inside a cardboard tray. Once removed, you’ll see a reasonable amount of add-ons and reading materials. SATA cables are limited to three, but you get a light kit’s extension cable. MSI provides a metal case badge and a ribbon SLI bridge, a set of stickers to label your SATA cables at both ends. As usual, you get an installation disc. Personally, I would like to see the day when all motherboard manufacturers would replace the driver disc for a flash drive.

Do you think it’s overdue at least for some mid to high-end motherboards? It’s a debatable topic as I’ve seen ZOTAC not providing installation disc with GTX 1050 Ti. The required installation folders exceed 6 GB.

Manual Overview

MSI’s detailed specification table nicely points out all the expansion options and features that this motherboard offers. MSI’s motherboard manual made a good impression with its X99A Gaming Pro Carbon. Not only it has all the instructions for installing even the basic hardware component, it also provides QR code linking to YouTube videos, helping people to build their first system on their own. While basic illustrations are common with almost all motherboard brands, linking YouTube video instructions shows that extra mile. The PDF copy can be downloaded from here.

6 comments

Hello. Nice review.
Can you tell me if only CPU and PUMP headers are capable of PWM and DC mode fan control or the system fan headers can do that also???
For example my Z87 G65 gaming can only do PWM control at CPU headers while system headers are DC only.
Much appreciated.

I just sent back the second Z270 M5 board to Newegg. The first one wouldn’t take more than one memory chip for some reason. I would get code 55 when I installed more than one chip. The second one ended up being a dead board. No power what-so-ever. I switched out the power supply and the board still didn’t respond. I’m in the process of calling MSI and letting them know what I think of their M5 board.

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